


somewhere beautiful

by southofzero



Category: The Legend of Zelda & Related Fandoms, The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Post-Apocalypse, Androids, F/M, Original incarnations, but they're based heavily on skyward sword, just in case you wanted a point of reference
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-23
Updated: 2018-01-23
Packaged: 2019-03-08 10:44:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,251
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13456578
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/southofzero/pseuds/southofzero
Summary: She had given him the ability to want and wish, but all he wanted was to be near her.





	somewhere beautiful

He was C-170229.

He was the newest model by Triforce, the Courage model. Serial number: 112198111906-111811.

Made to be a super soldier, designed with peak efficiency, and built for war and hard use. He could run for up to 3 miles in a sprint without stopping, survive 10 days on solar power alone, and snipe from 1000 yards away with little to no variations from his target. He was even made to blend in with the rest of the population. Each android was given different features and subcutaneous cells to heat their bodies like a regular person, and no-one could tell the difference at first glance.

He was programmed with no emotions, no fear, and no personality besides his given orders. But even with that technology, the war reaches the mainland on the 20th. He can recall every detail, from the bombs to his last, hastily issued assignment.

_Rescue as many civilians as possible._

No orders for his own recovery. Once his battery died he was disposable. If the war allowed it, he would be brought back accordingly. The last person he manages to save was a young girl. Green eyes, sooty face. The droning of the bomber planes had scared her, and she'd cried with relief once they made it to the shelter.

C-170229 powered down shortly after he delivered the girl to the safe area, and he had no recollection after his sight module blinked out. The last of his battery was used to safely shut down his harddrive.

.:.

When his sight blinks in again, he's looking at a ceiling. A woman's hair comes into view, and as his sensory drive boots up, he can feel the strands against his chest, tickling as she looks down at him. Her eyes are the bluest he's ever seen.

"About time! You Courage models take a long time to boot up." Her bangs swish as she twirls her screwdriver, and C-170229 sits up, almost knocking his head with hers.

"I have no orders." Something was wrong. His harddrive had been tampered with.

The woman waves her hands, the black handle of her screwdriver flashing into his frame of vision. "I just fixed your battery and added a couple chips. You were missing a few."

He wracks his archives for traces of his new companion. Finding nothing, he twitches his fingers against the hard metal of the table. "My orders have been revoked. How long have I been inactive?"

She shifts at his question. "The files on your memory chip said you shut down on the 21st, so about six months."

"Which side won the war?"

The woman hesitates, her hands dropping limply into her lap. "We did. There were many casualties." She pauses, lips pursing. "Many things were lost."

C-170229 recognizes the emotion in her voice: sadness. He feels something else, but he's not sure what it is. "What... is your name?" He enunciates the words carefully, almost stumbling over the question.

Her head lifts. "Zelda, what is yours?"

"C-170229. My serial number is -- " he starts to reply, but Zelda waves her hands again, cutting him off.

"No, not your model name, your real name." C-170229 furrows his brows. She wants his real name, but that was his real name. He was the newest model by Triforce, the Courage model: C-170229. 

"Are you..? Asking for my civilian issue name?" he asks.

Her eyes brighten, and she leans forward, blonde hair coming out of her hasty bun to slip over her shoulders. "Yes, that one. Your real one."

"Link. Link Avalon is my civilian issue name."

She smiles like his civilian name is the discovery of a lifetime, and suddenly he isn't C-170229, but Link Avalon. She takes his hand, folding it delicately between her own. "Link is a great name!"

Something foreign registers, and Link blinks as the feeling buzzes insistently in his temples. He doesn't know what it is, but it feels good, like the tickle of her hair and the brilliant emotion behind her excited smile. "I suppose it is."

.:.

He stays with her.

He isn't sure why, but he knows he has to. His purpose is fulfilled: wartime has passed and he's nothing more than a byproduct of a victory that cost too much. The country is in shambles; nothing left but dust and dirt, and everyone left was looking for some semblance of a home.

That included Zelda.

He finds out she's a traveling engineer. She offers her craft wherever she can, leaving a trail of reawakened robots and androids in her wake. Offers to stay follow as well, but she never accepts them. She just keeps going, stopping once in a while to revive her vintage car and any AI's near it.

He asks her why.

"To make people smile, I suppose. If I can do it, I should, shouldn't I?"

Link doesn't know the answer to that. He doesn't understand her reasoning either. Was her purpose to make people smile? Was that why she traveled? Was that why she remained lonely? He doesn't have the answer to that either, but he doesn't ask.

All of the AI's she's brought back have belonged to people, but not him. He belonged to the country, to the people he served, but she brought him back anyway. Just for the sake of doing it.

Along their travels he sits in the passenger seat of her car, atop old, cracked leather, but he never asks why. There were a lot of things he doesn't understand. Why she brought him back was one of them.

One day he finds the time to ask, between AI repairs and check-ups on her car.

She's covered in oil and grease, red-faced from the heat of the day, and he leans under the hood of her car to talk to her.

"Why did you fix me?"

She stops and straightens, the rays of the sun hitting her face. Link feels another rush of emotion, that jittery feeling that lingers in his fingertips. He stoutly ignores it. 

Zelda wipes her gloved hand across her brow. "What do you mean, Link?"

He shifts at the mention of his name, _his real name_ , and looks towards the assorted valves at his left. "You revived me, why? You've only revived AI's that belong to people, but not me." He mulls over it for a moment before adding: "Do I belong to you now?"

Her eyebrows scrunch up, the fine hairs almost meeting in the middle of her forehead. "You don't belong to anyone, especially not me." She leans a little closer, her fingers meeting his arm in a series of gentle rivets. "Do you want to leave? I could upgrade your battery so you could make it... somewhere."

"Where would I go?" he asks simply, and Zelda blinks.

"Where do you want to go?"

Another question he has no answer to. Link opens his mouth to answer, but asks his original question instead. "Why did you revive me?"

Zelda removes her hand from his arm, her face falling into something sad. "I found you near the shelter I was serving at, and you looked like - " She stops and draws a breath. "You looked like someone I knew, but you were just... an empty android."

Link doesn't know how to respond, but Zelda continues, saving him the trouble. "I wanted to see if you had a personality, but all you had were filled orders and missing chips. You were a blank slate." She meets his gaze, forlorn and searching. "So I gave you personality capabilities and emotion chips because..."

"... I wanted to give you a choice."

**.:.**

They don't talk for the rest of the afternoon. Zelda busies herself with the engine of her car, and Link spends the next hour tracing patterns in the sand. When she's done, she gathers the blankets from the trunk of her car and hands him one, the navy blue fleece a peace offering of sorts. He can tell she's washed them recently because they smell clean. He doesn't know why the scent makes him feel so calm, but he sinks into the feeling.

He realizes a few moments later that it's because they smell like her, like fabric softener and car oil. He doesn't know how to feel about that.

He doesn't how to feel at all. Everything is new and strange, and he had no orders on how to handle it. Free will is in his hands, tangible in the form of her and the blankets, and he doesn't know what to do with it.

She clambers onto the trunk of her car, legs hanging off the dusty edge, and wraps her upper half in the blanket. Link joins her with the one she'd given him, and after a moment Zelda takes a shuddering breath.

"I'm sorry."

Link turns to look at her, watching her eyes gloss over with tears. The sight of them made him nervous, but he's not sure what to do in response. He searches himself for a solution, dredging up nothing but the memory of the green eyed girl with the black shoe. "What are you sorry for?"

Zelda dashes away the wetness gathering in her eyes. "I tried to help you, but I couldn't. I just made it worse." The tears start to roll down her face, and she presses her palms to her cheeks, leaning against her forearms. "I was lonely, and I messed everything up."

"You didn't mess anything up." The matter-of-fact statement makes her lift her head, and she meets his eyes. The nervousness flares again, but Link finds something to say. "You gave me free will. That's supposed to be a good thing."

_Where do you want to go?_

"But I made you feel like you have to follow me, and that's not what I wanted for you at all!" She bursts out, and Link blinks at her.

_Link, where do you want to go?_

Silence falls, her words hanging between them, and Zelda turns away. She looks up at the clear sky above them, and Link traces her profile with his eyes. After a moment, he finds the answer he's been looking for.

"I think I know where I want to go now."

Zelda's head drops to search his face, her blanket slipping down around her waist. Link reaches out, hesitant in his own hands, and he tugs the fabric back around her shoulders. "I think I want to go where you are."

**.:.**

"You know, I've always wanted to see a castle."

Link turns at the sound of her voice, and Zelda pushes her goggles back, huffing an accomplished breath. The android on the table between them twitches as she presses the manual start-up in their wrist. Link watches silently as they boot up, and Zelda smiles at him. "Like the castle in the capital."

Link knows the one: it was the head of government and the center of operations. He's never seen it either, but he doesn't understand her interest. "Why?"

"It's beautiful. My mom always told me I had royal blood, but I think it was all silly talk."

She smiles at the android as they came to, bracing a hand on their back as they sit up. "There you go. Your battery leak is fixed, and I think your owner is outside."

The android looks back at her, their grey eyes blinking. "Thank you."

Zelda smiles again, letting them move past her to the door, and she runs a cloth down the length of her soldering iron. The door clicks shut, but Link's too busy watching the reflection of her fingers in the chrome. "Do you want to go there?" he asks, and she looks up. 

"To the castle?" She drops the iron into her bag, and Link hears it clink against her other tools. "It was destroyed during the bombing."

"Where do you want to go, then?"

The question makes her look back up at him, and her lips part. "I... don't know. I guess I'll just keep going until I find something." Her smile returns, brighter than before. "I've got someone to travel with now, so wherever we go, I'm sure it will be fine."

**.:.**

That night, they sleep in an abandoned hotel room. Delighted at the working washing machine in the basement, Zelda does all of the sheets and their clothes. She'd found secondary outfits for both of them in the last town, and she has the first set washed and dried by the end of the day. The blankets are too big for the dryers, so she hangs them on the balcony railings, clipped in place with her jumper cables.

Link has no preference in clothing, but Zelda comments that t-shirts and jeans fit him much better than his uniform. The compliment makes him turn away in embarrassment, and Zelda calls him 'humble' in a fit of mirth.

Halfway through the night, her voice rouses him from his hibernation state, and he watches her sit up in bed. "Link?"

He lifts his head. "Yes?"

She spots him and shifts in place, twisting the sheets around her waist as she turns towards him. The straps of her dress have slipped off her shoulders, leaving them highlighted by the light through the balcony window. The view makes his heart turn over. 

"You can lay over here with me, if you'd like." She freezes up, her braid slipping over her shoulder as she breathes in, and her voice is strained as she continues. "If you're not comfortable in the chair."

He's not sure what she means by comfortable. "Would you like me to?"

The hitch in her breath is audible from across the room, and she turns her face away. "I... yes, I think I would like you to."

Link rises from the chair and makes his way over, kneeling onto the bed before sitting next to her. Her face is a muted pink in the silvery light of the moon, and Link suddenly has the urge to touch her. Her hand, her cheek -- he would even settle for brushing her hair from her shoulder. The urge throws him for a loop, and Zelda finally looks at him.

"You asked where I wanted to go?" Her voice is quiet, and Link simply nods in response. She draws a breath and drops her eyes to her hands, her bangs fluttering as she ducks her head. "I'd like to go somewhere beautiful."

She turns to lay back down, facing away from him. "Goodnight, Link."

Link lays down beside her and folds his hands next to his face, realizing dully that he _wanted_ to touch her. She had given him the ability to want and wish, but all he wanted was to be near her.

The night is long, and they spend it back to back, unsaid words piling in the space between their spines.

.:.

"Why do people love each other?"

Zelda freezes, her knuckles whitening on the steering wheel, and Link almost regrets the question. A breath leaves her lips as she slows the car, the roar of the engine dimming to a low rumble. "It's -- hm." She pauses, mulling over the question. "I think it's because people are together, not out of obligation or necessity, but because they _want_ to be near one another."

Link rests his jaw in his palm, propping his elbow against the windowsill. The ground is scorched, and he stares out the window as it passes beneath them, watching as dust kicks up behind the wheels. Zelda pauses for a moment, and then repeats the same question he's asked a thousand times before. "Why?"

"I don't know," he answers, and the rest of the ride is quiet.

.:.

Her blood is sticky on his hands.

Link plows on anyway, footsteps loud on the concrete. He liked the dusty countryside better, all cracked earth and lost potential. Her breathing is shallow, each heartbeat pressing weakly against his shoulder, and Link feels fear race up and down his spine. He used to be a soldier, programmed without fear, but now a few uneven heartbeats are making his mind race. There's no help in this town; he needs to get her somewhere else.

Link keeps going.

Her car is wrecked, looted along with all of her tools, and he doesn't know where her goggles have gone. She almost never took them off, but now he doesn't know where they are. Nerves in his arm are jumping, making his fingers twitch against her thigh, and Link wonders if he'd ever sustained injuries this badly before. It's going to rain. He can't get caught in the rain like this. He can feel stretch-relax of the fake skin at his bicep; if water got in there, he could lose functioning in his arm.

Link keeps going.

He wants to stop. He wants Zelda to be alright. She'd given him everything, why hadn't it been him? She could fix him, but he had no way of fixing her. He remembers her tears, the way her blanket had fallen off her shoulders, her eyes in the dim light -- he loves her. He doesn't know how, but he loves her. 

Link keeps going.

He can feel the air changing, the smell of rain heavy and thick. Zelda's heartbeat gets weaker as she settles into shock, and Link wishes he could go back. Back to when he first met her. Ten months wasn't a long time, but he wanted every minute of it back. He wants to do it right this time.

His battery's dying, and he feels the first raindrop against his back. It slips down between his shoulderblades, dipping into the cut at the small of his back, and he feels the heating cells beneath his skin short circuit. Warning bells go off in his head, but Link only shifts Zelda in his grip, bracing his forearm against her back.

Link keeps going.

The cells are beginning to overheat, melting the fake skin around the cuts, but Link lets it happen. He takes shelter under a tree and tucks Zelda closer to himself, shielding her from the rain, and he rests his cheek against her rain-slick hair. He wants to cry for her, express sadness like she'd done for him, but nothing happens.

Her heartbeat is dimming, fading, and Link realizes he's not going to find help after all.

When the rain stops he gets back up, forcing his legs to work for a little while longer. He needs to get help, and if he can't do that, he needs to take her somewhere beautiful.

Link keeps going. 

Her heartbeat finally stops in his final moments of battery life, and Link drops to his knees, the exposed circuits around his injuries buzzing. After setting her down, he lays down next to her and looks up.

The lack of light pollution has made the stars brighter, forming a galaxy of pinpricks in the night sky. It's beautiful, and Link feels a rush of conflicting emotion. He'd taken her somewhere beautiful, but she'd never gotten the chance to see it. He searches for her hand, finding it among tufts of dry grass and sand.

"I'm sorry," he says aloud, more to the open sky than her. She isn't next to him anymore, not really, but maybe his words would find her up there. She'd always told him heaven was upwards. "I love you."

His system begins to shut down, the stars in his vision blinking away, and he hopes that wherever she's gone, he'd be allowed to follow.


End file.
